


A Captain Never Rests

by Yashiko61



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:03:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8919964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yashiko61/pseuds/Yashiko61
Summary: Jim knows that being the captain comes first. Bones sometimes knows that Jim just needs a chance to be himself.





	

The sound of the comm buzzing brought Leonard awake with a start, and he spent a half second groaning face first into his pillow before pushing himself up enough so that he could reach for it. Except it wasn't his comm. He snapped his own closed and lobbed it over the partition, hearing it thunk on the floor somewhere in the proximity to the sofa. He wasn't on call. Hell, the next day he was supposed to be off even. No one should be bothering him.

Next to him, Jim was sluggishly reaching for his, and mercifully killed the alarm. The light from the comm shone like a beacon in the darkness of Jim's quarters, and Jim squinted at the screen before dropping it next to him on the bed and reluctantly sitting up, rubbing at his face.

"What the hell do they want?" Leonard muttered, slumping back down to a prone position on his half of the bed.

"Something urgent. Can't wait until alpha," Jim replied, voice scratchy from sleep.

"There's no ship wide alert." It was half a statement, and half a question.

"No." Jim swung his legs off the bed and stood up, his sleep pants low on his narrow hips. The t-shirt fell around his back from where it had rode up on him in his sleep with the movement towards the closet, where he pulled out a fresh uniform, then went into the bathroom. "Hopefully this won't take long."

The two of them had gone to bed relatively late. Leonard didn't need to be anywhere in the morning, and Jim typically only slept around six hours anyways, so it normally would have been a non-issue. A glance at the chrono across the room revealed though that it was 0200 ship's time, so no matter if they had managed to get to bed on time, it was still ungodly early.

Leonard heard the sound of Jim washing up quickly as he laid in the bed. In the med bay, they had one junior doctor on duty, and M'Benga and Chapel were both on call. He would only be called in either if a ship-wide alert sounded, or there was an emergency requiring one of his medical specialties that wasn't duplicated among his staff. Or it was Jim.

He had nearly started to doze off again when the bathroom door slid open, and Jim made his way to the door, where he grabbed his boots from where they had been left on the mat. Jim looked towards the bed, and simply said "I'll send a message if I'll be long," before he stepped out into the bright corridor and the room returned to darkness.

Leonard debated momentarily about getting up to see what what happening, but decided to let his staff do their jobs, and rolled over onto his side, burying one hand under Jim's pillow with fingers splayed to feel the lingering warmth as he slipped back into a dreamless sleep.

\---

Some indeterminate time later, Leonard felt the bed dip beside him, and Jim's fingers carding through his hair roused him enough to crack an eye open and sleepily mumble "What time is it?"

"0600." Jim sounded tired, but alert.

"Ugh. Are you coming back to bed a while?"

"No, if I lay down now I'll never be up in time for the start of alpha."

"Can't Spock cover you?"

"He was up too, but is busy. We had an incident in Engineering. A couple minor injuries, nothing your night staff couldn't handle. We may just be limited to warp three until the next time we can stop at a Starbase."

"Sounds like a close call."

"Yeah, that's why Spock is with Scotty now, doing an investigation. I'm going to get something to eat then go up to the bridge. I have to start drafting a report to the fleet."

Leonard stirred, about to get up, but Jim placed his hand against his shoulder. "Go back to sleep, enjoy your day off. I'll call if we need anything but you know how thorough Spock is with investigating stuff. We probably won't be ready to get the CMO's comments until tomorrow anyways." Jim leaned over and pecked a quick kiss to Leonard's forehead, then stood up and left before Leonard could argue further.

Leonard managed another hour of dozing lightly before he gave up and returned to his own quarters to shower and change. He had planned for his day off to work on a journal article he had been halfheartedly writing for weeks, and managed to write another large section, while sipping at his coffee, over the course of the morning. Shortly before noon, he stopped pretending to himself that he wasn't at least concerned about the incident that had resulted in Jim being called in, and he made his way up to Jim's ready room.

Rand, Jim's primary yeoman, said that he hadn't left since arriving around 0630, toting a muffin and his travel mug in hand. Leonard thanked her and stepped in, and Jim looked up from his desk. There were slight dark circles below his eyes that had not been apparent from the darkness of Jim's quarters, and he looked drained.

"Hey, Jim," Leonard greeted in response to Jim's wary look.

"Hi Bones," Jim echoed back. "Just give me a moment, I am almost done this section."

Leonard plunked down on one of the tub chairs nestled in the corner of the room, and tried not to overtly stare at Jim who returned his attention to rapidly typing out something at the computer. Jim was obviously stressed, but the "Captain-Administrator" mode was fully engaged.

He had long made a habit of studying Jim's many moods, from "Let's-go-get-drunk Jim", "Yes-I-do-actually-study Jim", all the way to "Leave-me-the-hell-alone Jim". Captaincy had brought on a few extra typesets, like "Captain-Explorer", "Captain-Smooth-talker", and "Captain-Hero" (which almost always was directly followed by "I'm-not-hurt Jim").

Jim, much like he was back during the academy, was able to push out a fair bit of info quite quickly, if he maintained his focus and was in the right mind set. Rand and Spock sometimes had to essentially lock him in the ready room with a stack of reports to review from time to time, but when Jim was in the right mood, he was surprisingly efficient at the less glamorous aspect of his job. Leonard could appreciate it, as he also was saddled with not only his patient files but the bureaucracy of running the medical department. 

Jim finished and pushed back from his desk a few minutes later, stretching his back as he walked over and flopped into the chair next to Leonard and let out a big sigh.

"So, do you want to vent about what happened here, or over lunch?"

Jim's eyes flicked over to Leonard, and Jim clearly was resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"Jesus, Bones, do you need to play shrink now?"

"Now, or over lunch, Jim," Leonard simply replied. Jim sighed but swung his right leg over the left knee, and loosely folded his arms across his lower chest.

"It's still somewhat confidential, but one of Scotty's engineers tried to install a modification without clearing it through him, and it caused some damage to a part of the warp system that we don't have spares for. A couple minor burns from a panel sparking, but that was it for injuries. But one of Scotty's lieutenants had largely reamed the crewman out before Spock or I could get there and intervene."

Jim rubbed his eyes tiredly before continuing. "It wasn't that he didn't have reason to be angry, or the crewman didn't screw things up badly, but I now have to work out how to both deal with the crewman, and work with Scotty so he, I don't know, is better able to teach his staff to react better. Because in a bigger emergency, I need to count on anyone who is in charge of a section at any given time to keep their heads on straight even if the stress is high. And I also have to explain to the Fleet why we are limping back at maybe a third of our normal top speed back to a star base for an early engine repair."

Jim sagged in the chair as he finished. 

"Feel better?"

"Sort of, well, not really, but better than venting to Spock."

"Fair enough. Let's go get lunch."

"Sure," Jim said as he straightened up before getting to his feet. Leonard followed him out the door, and they went down to the officers mess. The chef had a stew made up, which seemed to fit the bill for a filling comfort food on a day like this. They mainly ate in silence, Jim having a contemplative expression between spoonfuls of stew and rice.

"You know Jim, I would have to look in my old files to see if I still I have my notes, but back in med school I had to do some leadership seminars on managing people during times of stress. I didn't do much more training on this specifically at the academy in the medical stream because I was already qualified as an attending physician, but I'm sure there is a curriculum in place already that we could implement for junior officers."

"Most of us would have done some as part of our common core courses at the Academy, you must have been exempted."

"Refreshers never hurt. Should I see what I can pull up, or will you get in touch with the distance learning coordinator?"

"Well, I think the academy should have some materials on hand already. I'll send them a message. We are far enough out though that it might not be until we limp back to the base before we get a reply."

"I figured as much. Let me know what they say."

"Sure. Look, I know it's our usual evening to hang out, but I don't know if I will be up that late. I don't want to impose on you..."

"Do you want to see if we can both make it through a movie and supper? I can order something up from the mess and if you call it quits early that's fine."

"Sounds good. I know it's your turn to pick a movie but did you have something in mind already to inflict on me?"

"What? As revenge for your last pick, what was it, 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon?' Complete with those goddamned terrible blue-red so-called 3-D glasses? You still owe me for that part of my life I will never ever get back," Leonard grumbled, but with the tone of voice that betrayed his amusement. "Trust me, if I want to offer up classic science fiction, there are much better options to choose from."

"Okay, okay! Your pick! Just no slow-paced dramas unless you really want me out of your hair right away," Jim countered, unsuccessfully repressing a small yawn.

"Deal."

"I'm off shift after alpha, so meet at your quarters for supper?"

"You have a bigger couch. Your place for once."

"Sure," Jim said, as he pushed back his chair from the mess table. "If you bring the drinks."  
  
"Fine. Comm me when you are on your way back to the quarters," Leonard replied, as they moved out of the mess hall. They took off in separate ways, Leonard back to his quarters and Jim to the bridge. He took the afternoon to do some personal correspondence and reading, and it wasn't long before it was close to the end of the alpha shift. He pulled out a bottle of decent bourbon from his stash and a couple of tumblers, and they were ready to go by the time Jim commed to say he would be ready soon. Leonard gave him ten minutes to change, and walked the short distance to Jim's quarters.

He had barely pressed the buzzer when the door slid open. Jim was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, hair tussled in a way that suggested that he didn't bother to smooth anything out after changing out of his uniform. Leonard stepped in and was nearly done pouring a first round of drinks when the meal was delivered. They both settled onto the couch, and got the movie going as they ate, and later lounged while sipping at their drinks. Leonard had out of spite picked one of the better science fiction movies from the early 21st century to watch, one that neither he nor Jim could pick apart aside from things that were only discovered well after the movie was made.

Sure enough, Jim had a sleepy look on his face by the end, and Leonard cleaned up enough before letting Jim settle into bed for an early night. He settled in the bed beside Jim, but read journal articles until it was close to 2300 hours, then ordered the lights to minimum and laid down for the night. Jim shifted in his sleep, coming to rest against Leonard's chest, and he threw an arm over Jim's torso before nodding off.

A number of hours later, Jim woke early and rolled over. Leonard had a serene expression on his sleeping face, and Jim simply brushed a kiss over Leonard's forehead before losing his eyes and going back to sleep for another couple hours.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been super busy, so here is something that has been worked on in bits and pieces for some time. I have a couple longer works on the go, but this one was about as complete as I think it is going to get.


End file.
